Napier Crookenden

Lieutenant General Sir Napier Crookenden, KCB, DSO, OBE, DL (31 August 1915 – 31 October 2002) was a British Army General who reached high office in the 1960s.

Educated at Wellington College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Crookenden was commissioned into the Cheshire Regiment in 1935.

He served in the Second World War as a Brigade Major in the 6th Airlanding Brigade in 1943 planning and implementing glider assaults to secure bridges over the River Orne on the day of the Normandy Landings. He served as Commanding Officer of 9th (Eastern and Home Counties) Parachute Battalion between 1944 and 1946 leading his Regiment in the Battle of the Bulge and then the crossing of the River Rhine.

He was Director of Operations during the Malayan Emergency between 1952 and 1954 and served as Commander of 16th Parachute Brigade from 1960 to 1961. He went to the Imperial Defence College in 1962. He was appointed Director of Land/Air Warfare at the Ministry of Defence in 1964 and then Commandant at the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham in 1967. He became the last General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Western Command in 1969 and retired in 1972.

Memorial to Napier Crookenden in Chester Cathedral

In retirement he became a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent. He was also a lecturer on military history on the P&O steamship SS Uganda.

In 1948 he married Patricia Nassau, daughter of Hugh Kindersley, 2nd Baron Kindersley, and they went on to have had two sons and two daughters.

• Crookenden, Napier (1978). Airborne at War. Ian Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-0771-0. 
• Crookenden, Napier (1980). Battle of the Bulge 1944. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-16614-8. 
• Crookenden, Napier (1976). Dropzone Normandy. The Story Of The American And British Airborne Assault On D Day 1944. Ian Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-0660-7.